Guatemala - The Mayan Calendar

Guatemalan traditional dress. Mostly, the women weave their own 'wipels' this beautiful top shown here. Imagine learning such a skill from the women in our own families and creating our own identities from patterns we choose.

 

Jade was highly revered and much of the sacred green stone was placed on those who had died to provide a passage to the Underworld, the afterlife.

 I want to learn about the Mayan calendar and spirituality. First step, Jade Museum, conveniently located close to the chocolate museum! Once inside, a kind Latino fellow takes me for a walk around and describes the purity of real Jade. I am so attracted the earthy-ness of this stone and how highly revered it is in the Mayan culture. I learn that the Mayan counted up to 20 different cycles of life or 3-20 different 'calendars'. The one we are in now, is referred to as the 'long count' and it is indeed coming to an end of sorts sometime soon. The exact date is unknown, however many mark it as December 20th 2012. The following day, December 21st will mark the beginning of a new cycle of light and harmony for humanity. Mayan belief confirms that there will be no 'end of the world' but rather that the new cycle has a mission to harmonise all humanity, as stated in a sacred Mayan text: "We will be brothers like the fingers of a hand. Brothers among us and all around us'. http://www.sabiduriamaya.org/home/profecias.asp. What is known is that the Earth, Sun and centre of the Galaxy (the Milky Way) will be aligned.

Mayan woman and son selling weavings on the cobbled streets of Antigua. In the background are a collection of scenes of Christ's life that are brought out and carried around the streets for a Christian festival brought to town by the Spanish in the 1500s.

 The Mayan calendar was once used by many across Mesoamerica and is still used today by some tradional peoples, Mayan priests and truth seekers all over the world! The Calendar is made up of a 365 day solar calendar called the Haab and a 'ritual almanac' of 260 days called the Tzolk'in. This is divided into 20 symbolic day signs and 13 'months'. I wanted to find out what my birth-day sign was. I am I'x, which is the Jaguar (8). The sign and number are significant. I read that the Jaguar sign is the Spiritual Guardian of alters, women, the jungle, hills, mountains and plains. It is the day of female energy, of astuteness, daring, intelligence and strong natural forces. It is a good day to ask forgiveness of the exploitation of Mother Nature. These signs are called to be defenders of Mother Nature. I learn this then get an amazing 2 hour reading on the sign while in the most fantastic volcanic lake, Lake Atitlan - where I visit a friend (2 blogs from here). If you want to find out your Mayan Sign and more about the Calendar, check out this website: http://www.maya-portal.net/tzolkin.



Mmmmm, street food: tostada with guacamole and a sweet corn drink



Comon' buy our bracelets

The most beautiful hand woven works. I bought a blue cushion cover for my Mum :)

Comon!

Guatemala - The Chocolate Story

9 July 2012, Antigua, Guatemala

Close to the main plaza I come across a Chocolate Museum. The densly sweet smell pulls me inside. "Would you like to make your own chocolate?" of course I would! I don an apron and silly chocolate chef hat and join fellow travellers in a chocolate workshop. I learn that chocolate was first appreciated by the Mayans and Aztecs in Central and South America, where the cocoa plant was viewed as sacred. The Mayans would take the cocoa bean, ferment it, dry roast it then seperate the husk from the bean before grinding it into a paste. The bean contains the cocoa butter and mass equivalent to make a wonderful paste, to which hot water was added to make a bitter chocolate drink.

In ceremony the Mayan's would sometimes add blood as offerings to the gods as well as adding some spices like chilli and cardamon. Later, the Mayans would add paprika instead of blood to fool the gods! Chocolate was greatly reveared and the beans were used as currency. In the 1500's the Spaniards took the chocolate drink back to Spain but many found it too bitter and added sugar. The English and French added milk and eventually created the solid chocolate that is popular throughout the world today.

 

Pouring chocolate, grinding chocolate beans with the international crew at the Chocolate Factory :)

The husks and chocolate itself contain Theobromine which is the alkaloide that creates the good mood or love feeling we get from chocolate. In its pure form chocolate is extremely good for us - humans that is, for dogs it is toxic. It is full of flavonoids and antioxidants which means it relaxes blood pressure, improves heart health, while stimulating brain and memory function. I have it for iron intake, energy and mood improver. And I kinda feel I am partaking in a sacred act. :D  Beware of chocolate that has lower amounts of chocolate mass and butter and is replaced with Lecithin (this is where chocolate companies take out the butter to sell to cosmetic companies) and full of sugar and milk. Go for fair trade, 70% and organic if possible for a sublime, health effect. I often add a spoonful of organic, raw cacao powder to my morning superfood smoothiesn or mix with avocado and Agave to make a sublime vegan mousse.

Guatemala, Antigua - The city that I fell in love with

The fountain in the Central Plaza

A door with a key

Hammock bliss

Street performance

oh a serenade

The streets of Antigua, a World Heritage Town. Each doorway must be wooden and they are beautifully adorned.

Young people pash in the streets as Mayan descendants sell woven goods under the Arch

Alluring tapestries and hand woven 'wipels' the traditional dress still worn by Guatemalan indigenous women. It is a fantastic, brilliant sight to behold and live one's days amongst.  

Inside the Mayan community artist's cooperative

The Arch, on my most favourite street. One can sometimes view the magnificent 'Volcan de Agua' one of the looming volcanoes that fringe the checkerboard city

Shopping is such a pleasure when the local handicrafts are so, so beautiful and artistic. Gorgeous.

1 hr bus travel from Guatemala City and I arrive in the World Heritage town of Antigua. Nestled in a low lying area surrounded by volcanoes - one with occasional smoke, ash and larva - Mt.Fuego which actually recently erupted, causing an evacuation of some 30,000 people who live in villages around the volcano. All people were unharmed according to reports I viewed.

The sound of car tyres over cobble stone streets lulls me to sleep at night in my cute hostel with brightly striped hammoks on the roof top. I walk around the town shaped like a checkerboard, with chocolate shops on corners and young people pashing in the streets. I photograph weathered walls painted in terra-cotta reds, oranges, yellow and pale blue with antique wooden doors, barred windows and fresh flowers. What is behind the doors?  I peer into one door and 3 musicians have just started a song and invite me in for a serenade! I don't have time today as I am going to meet my new friends for ice-cream.

Paula introduces me to Lesley, a British doctor and has been here for 10 years. She is a fountain of knowledge and kindly shares it with me. Over a divine dinner of gnocchi, ratatouille crepe and orange ginger soup we get on the topic of the man building his gigantic building next door to Lesley, she thinks he is over-compensating for something; to that Paula shares a Texan expression: "all hat and no cattle"! :)



 

Guatemala - Share your chocolate with Strangers & The Cocaine Story

A wee little Mayan girl is as attracted to the street nuts as me. Antigua, Guatemala

7th July 2012:

Amando is a man I met in Dallas at the airport, he is on his phone sounding very busy organizing all manner of details as I sit next to him. I open a block of organic dark chocolate take a piece, break some more and offer it to the stranger to my left. We talk, board the plane and (of course) he is in the seat in front of me. I meet the woman to my right, Paula from Dallas. I explain that my planned trip to Lake Atitlan in Guatemala is delayed and that I am considering stopping in Antigua for the week. She is a regular visitor to Antigua and immedietly gives me travel information and hands me a map of the town onto which she locates some restaurants and her hotel. I am discovering the joy of the luck that befalls the solo traveler. I recognise how things are 'falling into place' marvel at the fortune of it.

Paula talks with a familiar face out front of the Mayan Handicrafts Co-operative and Fridas Mexican restaurant, Antigua, Guatemala

On landing in Guatemala I make my way to the front exit to find my hotel transfer. Standing next to the driver is...Amando - we r staying at the same hotel! From the trip, dinner and breakfast I learn much about Amando. He was born in Mexico to his Mexican parents but after his mum died when he was 3, the family moved to Dallas (there were no immigration laws in the 40's). Amando got inspired by his Marxist tutors at Uni and an active rebellious group of leftists but he flet he needed more, so became a man of faith. These days he is a committed pastor and runs development missions throughout regional Guatemala. Tomorrow, 95 faith followers arrive in Guatemala for a week of volunteering at villages pouring basketball courts, teaching recycling rubbish and renewing ones soul with the lord. I like Amando, he preaches from a place of love and grace and not from fear. In fact, the name Amando means 'love' and the name David (a derivative) means 'loved one'. David is my brother's name and we both grew up in a strict Jehovah Witness household. We feared 'god' and learnt about christian-based religion from this perspective, both running away from the religion and our home in our teenage years.

Amando told me stories about regional Guatemala and the violence in drug (cocaine) trafficking. The trafficking groups intimidate each other to get control of roads through Guatemala and Mexico into California and other American states for market. Intimidation may involve removing a finger, a limb or burning family members. America is cracking down on the growers and are killing hectares of crops by applying chemical herbicides which contaminate water sources and agriculture. This is the journey of cocaine before it goes up a nose for a good time. A massive journey of hurt, pain, violence and injustices to feed a market of over consuming people in the 'other world'. We're all one people - reflect on the journey of all stuff u eat, wear and consume or party with and then we will know what Unity feels like.

The travel bug bites

Thursday 5th July 2012: As we jet over ocean half way around the World from Sydney to Latin America I look out the window and see the setting sun radiating an orange glow on the wing of the plane. As the sun sets as I leave the world I know for my 2 month trip I say goodbye to Aussie land and all I wish to release through this journey. As soon as I step on the plane my IBS symptoms subside. Perhaps it is the fact I have just resigned from my job? :) Transiting through Dallas, Texas I meet lovely people. Amongst the clinical cultural experience one can glean from an American airport I read a message on the wall of the Taco & Tequila bar, it reads: "Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you will have been, and there you will always long to return." Leonardo da Vinci.